Parental controls & censorship

Dark Kaiser Redux · November 2011

Myself and most of my friends/classmates grew up watching whatever we liked. I wouldn't study the TV guide to make sure I didn't miss an episode or sit there jacking off but I'd just check it out to see what it's all about. Back then most people didn't have internet at home but my dad did, and whenever I was over at his house and he was out I'd browse for that stuff a bit. During computer class at school or during break on the computers in the library we'd check out porn sites and try not to get caught. There was no tabbing in browsers back then so you had to be quite quick-fingered.

If a four year old accidently switches to a porn channel or website, that's different and I think there should be something to stop that happening. If they do want to, they should be allowed to without being thwarted by parental control features.

It's like parents who home-school their kids because they don't want them exposed to the corruption and evil of the big bad world. Bad theory. That works for Jedi only. Parents must stop thinking that their children are inherently pure and angelic and that sex is something evil. It didn't make us feel dirty or corrupt us and turn us into depraved, perverted sex criminals - it's just natural, healthy curiosity at that age. Not only that but I'd say it's actually an important part of growing up.

What do you guys think and what was it like for you?

Darth Beaver · November 2011

I am glad I grew up in an age with things that remove your innocence before it is time. Porn on the internet is not sex it is something to fap to and make money from. Sex is something that is shared by two people to either sastify primal urges or in it's highest form to be as close as you can to someone you truly care for.

chippy · November 2011

Like TDR I grew up in an age of innocence. I think kids, especially on the internet need protecting. It vary's with age though. I'd say pre sex education at school they should have no exposure at all, say younger than 11. After that it's at parents discretion. Some religions frown on it, some not so much. My 16yo I let watch more or less what she wants apart from hard core porn. She's still at the stage where she's more likely to go ewwwwww at the sight of a naked male and turn over or turn away lol

jugg · November 2011

Dark Kaiser Redux wrote: »

If a four year old accidently switches to a porn channel or website, that's different and I think there should be something to stop that happening.

There is something that does stop that. Parents that actually "parent" their children, and not use the pc or tv as baby sitters.

Unknown · November 2011

I don't have kids so it's hard for me to say anything on this situation, but generally I'd like my kids to have the same freedom I had when growing up. I was exposed to a fair bit of swearing and starting seeing pronz as soon as I had my own computer in my bedroom (although it was hooked up to dial-up and my porn consisted of stuff I found in Google Images). I can't say it's affected me negatively at all, and to be honest it's probably just made me question why people find that kind of thing (swearing) offensive and not suitable for kids. Words are words, watch Stephen Fry's video about swearing on Youtube - gotta love it. As long as my kids don't start swearing at innapropriate times then I don't have a problem with it. I'm sure we all let out a few swears when we were little kiddies, in fact I can remember getting told off by my Mum for telling my mate that "I'll be right back, I need a piss" and I couldn't have been very old at all

I dunno about exposing my kids to porn and sex until they're a bit older though. Kids are meant to be innocent in that area, IMO. Plus, if they see it all instead of experiencing it in their own time then they'll ruin the fun in discovering it all! Plus it might fuck them up in the head or something, I dunno.

Serious question though - are there studies to show what effect swearing / sex has on kids as they're growing up?

RemadE · November 2011

My Parents never blocked anything except for a few months with McAfee on the PC. I'd be watching Eurotrash at the age of 13 and violent TV Shows/Movies when I was a kid, and sometimes with my Dad.
When my Parents did put a block on the Internet, I just got round it. Glad I was able to play with shotguns, fireworks and porn at a young age. Sure, it may have fucked me up a bit, but for the most part, I'm more of a "normal" guy than those who have really overburdening Parents who lock their kids up.

jugg · November 2011

The problem that kids today face is the easy access to porn etc... Also predators have direct lines to them. The only chance you have in trying to slow it down is monitoring your kids.

Unknown · November 2011

^ I'd hate to like... Monitor my kids. My parents have always respected my privacy and I'd like to do the same when I have children. Sure, you can advise them not to go to certain places of the internet, but they're bound to find it eventually. I don't think I'd monitor them though, that's a little creepy IMO. I wouldn't want to know what weird shit they're looking at and they probably wouldn't want me knowing either.

I still wouldn't tell my parents about Totse, my online identity, etc. They don't ask either, and I like it that way.

Dark Kaiser Redux · November 2011

People who are concerned about this should be working to create a better and more moral society, rather than knowingly and deliberately creating an immoral society and then scratching their heads trying to figure out how to protect the kids from the shit that they created.

Unknown · November 2011

I'm not sure I understood what you just said (hungover, tired as fuck, etc). Fancy explaining a little better?

jugg · November 2011

You don't have to sit there and watch them, but you need to check there Facebook pages,internet history, and cell phone messages specially if you have daughters.

Darth Beaver · November 2011

You have to monitor your kids that is part of parenting. The difference today is there is so much more to monitor. Back in the day you only had to check under the bed for stolen copies of porn mags, check their clothes for the smell of tobacco, keep an eye on who their friends were, and verify they went where they said they were going from time to time. With cell phones and the internet the job is much more complex.

Unknown · November 2011

You don't have to sit there and watch them, but you need to check there Facebook pages,internet history, and cell phone messages specially if you have daughters.

You'd ACTUALLY go through your kid's internet history and read their TEXTS? Fuck that man, that's meant to be personal. I don't like people reading my text conversations in general, let alone my parents. Why should they know what I've been talking about to my friends? That's my own personal stuff, nothing for them to know about. I remember when I was younger and I had my first phone - they never once asked to see my messages. I had a lock on my phone anyway so they wouldn't have been able to read them if they wanted to, but that's beside the point.

Tell me, what's the need to read through your kid's messages or look through their internet history?

jugg · November 2011

To make sure that they arent being taken advantage of by older sexual predators.

One of the attractions of the Internet is the anonymity of the user, and this is why it can be so dangerous. A child doesn't always know with whom he or she is interacting. Children may Offline, pedophiles typically operate in isolation. Never before have pedophiles had the opportunity to communicate so freely and directly with each other as they do online. Their communication on the Internet provides validation, or virtual validation, for their behavior. They share their conquests, real and imagined. They discuss ways to contact and lure children online and exchange tips on seduction techniques. They are using the technology of the Internet to train and encourage each other to act out sexually with children. The Internet also serves as a tool for predators to exchange tips on the avoidance of law enforcement detection.
The most common means by which sexual predators contact children over the Internet is through chat rooms, instant messages and email. In fact, 89% of sexual solicitations were made in either chat rooms or instant messages and 1 in 5 youth (ages 10-17 years) has been sexually solicited online (JAMA, 2001). Considering that 25% of kids online participate in real time chat and 13 million use instant messaging, the risks of such children, either knowingly or unknowingly, interacting with a predator ism alarmin

source

There are over 644,865 registered sex offenders in the United States, and over 100,000 are lost in the system.[1]

Research indicates that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before adulthood;[2] sadly, 30-40% of these victims are abused by a family member and 50% are abused by someone outside the family whom they know and trust. [3] Although the majority of this child sex abuse does not occur online, in the Internet age, offline sex abuse if fueled by pedophiles’ unprecedented access to child pornography online.

One in seven kids received a sexual solicitation online.[4]

Over half (56%) of kids sexually solicited online were asked to send a picture; 27% of the pictures were sexually-oriented in nature.[5]

44% of sexual solicitors were under the age of 18.[6]

Four percent of all youth Internet users received aggressive sexual solicitations, which threatened to spill over into “real life”. These solicitors asked to meet the youth in person, called them on the telephone or sent offline mail, money or gifts. Also, four percent of youth had distressing sexual solicitations that left them feeling upset of extremely afraid.[7]

Of aggressive sexual solicitations of youth (when the solicitor attempted to establish an offline contact via in-person meeting or phone call), 73% of youth met the solicitor online.[8]

Sexual solicitations of youth occur:[9]

o Chatrooms (37%)
o Instant Messaging (40%)
o Other, like gaming devices (21%)
The more risky behaviors kids engage in online, the more likely they will receive an online sexual solicitation. These risky behaviors include[10]:

o Posting personal information (50%)
o Interacting with online strangers (45%)
o Placing strangers on buddy lists (35%)
o Sending personal information to strangers (26%)
o Visiting X-rated sites (13%)
o Talking about sex with strangers (5%)
80% of online offenders against youth were eventually explicit with youth about their intentions, and only 5% concealed the fact that they were adults from their victims.[11

The majority of victims of Internet-initiated sex crimes were between 13 to 15 years old; 75% were girls and 25% were boys.[12]

14 percent of students in 10th-12th grade have accepted an invitation to meet an online stranger in-person and 14 percent of students, who are usually the same individuals, have invited an online stranger to meet them in-person.[13]

14 percent 7th-9th grade students reported that they had communicated with someone online about sexual things; 11 percent of students reported that they had been asked to talk about sexual things online; 8 percent have been exposed to nude pictures and 7 percent were also asked for nude pictures of themselves online. [14]

59 percent of 7th-9th grade victims said their perpetrators were a friend they know in-person; 36 percent said it was someone else they know; 21 percent said the cyber offender was a classmate; 19 percent indicated the abuser was an online friend; and 16 percent said it was an online stranger.[15]

Nine percent of children in 7th-9th grade have accepted an online invitation to meet someone in-person and 10 percent have asked someone online to meet them in-person.[16]

13 percent of 2nd-3rd grade students report that they used the Internet to talk to people they do not know, 11 percent report having been asked to describe private things about their body and 10 percent have been exposed to private things about someone else's body. [17]

source
If you dont check your head is in the sand.

Dark Kaiser Redux · November 2011

You need to teach your kids to identify potential predators themselves.

jugg · November 2011

well that's a good idea too, but when the sexual predators act like they are children it wont work as well. Im not talking about 16 to 18 year old kids. Im talking about kids who are 5 to 14 year's old.

Unknown · November 2011

Just drill the idea into their head that there are some sick fuckers out there who aren't always who they appear to be. Don't trust anyone, and never ever meet anyone from the internet!

RemadE · November 2011

My Mum is a real snoop on my Sister, but she has to find that fine line between driving her away from an over-paranoid parent and giving her trust. Bloody teenagers these days. she isn't an angel, but still, no excuse for my parents to be dicks. I got away with murder as a kid, as my parents let me grow weed, build explosive devices, go to parties and all the rest, but for my Sister it's a different story. Then again with her being the only kid at home it must be hard for my Mum to let go.

That's why I don't do emotional ties.

kfc v lot · November 2011

I dunno as soon as I ran into web filters I found they were for everything, well it also blocked pictures of weapons(antique swords from exhibits) so dad just gave the password so I unblocked everything oops.. And the rest they say is history mind you trying to find free porn was always hard to impossible it used to be 30second clips. And then when the computer was redone he kept the same passwords so that was easy..
Then when I was 15 I got my own laptop this ancient dell that was awesome so that just went round the problem, nowadays ofcourse you can select to have porn blocked by your isp when you buy your broadband which I oppose just because I am an advocate of Open Internet. But if I had kids(god forbid) and they didn't get eaten by bears or wolves then I would probably filter it but in a way that is rather well hidden and unacessible without much effort.

jugg · November 2011

trx100 wrote: »

Just drill the idea into their head that there are some sick fuckers out there who aren't always who they appear to be. Don't trust anyone, and never ever meet anyone from the internet!

^This

Slartibartfast · November 2011

I've thought about this before, my philosophy is this:

I don't want to filter anyone from doing what they want but i don't want them accidentally accessing things they don't want to acess.

A lot of people say things like "What's wrong with boobs?", if the only adult content on the Internet was topless women then i would agree with them. We all know that's not the case, there is some vile, degrading, violent sites out there that a child simply won't be able to process.

There are a bunch of kids who access the Internet from my house, I've set up a computer for them with openDNS set to filter pornography and gore.

Little Kids often type in "poo" or "shit' or "fuck" into Google just for giggles, any one of those terms could lead to something unexpected...

dr rocker · November 2011

I thought about this from being quite young. When I was a kid doing stuff, I thought about how my parents would deal with what I was doing if I was caught. To determine if what I thought they might do was proportionate, I would think of what I would do if I was the parent. I remember seing pornography when I was 5 I think in a porno mag. I remember watching it from being 8 or so. When I knew I would be alone, I would get a tape my parents must have thought was hidden, but I knew where it was. Being that propper hard corn pornography was illegal then and is now in the UK to sell, it was some European stuff. Normally German or Dutch, but sometimes French or Spanish. It was fucking hardcore stuff.

I would even set he video to rewind the tape to the exact point it had been at. Access to pornographic magazines was common, they could be found many placesafter people had left them there or dumped them. Maybe some pervert who wanted to fuck a tree while looking at porn, or maybe some one that was feeling horny and wanted a wank in the woods. Its no joke you could find porn under bushes. We also quickly found and worked out the timings of the local printed media depot and when they would put stuff in the skip and how to open the skip. Everyone I knew had porn or access to porn from at the most 12 years of age.

However, the internet has come along and it just makes it easier. Easier to have some kind of disaterous accident also. Parents however, should not just see it as protecting their children, but also protecting themselves.

How long will it be before we see a man at trial for having what we would consider child porn on his computer, for it to be that his 11 year old son is knocking one off to pictures of girls older than him? How long before people who do not have addequate virus and such protection can be prosecuted for not taking precautions to prevent botnets and viruses?

Originally, the internet did not need the moral police. It was made up of accademics and military networks, as a medium to communicate at a very fast pace. Whilst it is a medium that can convey information very fast now, very fast indeed to at least 3 billion people on the planted, and increasing the speed the other 4 billion get it by a massive amount,it is no longer the exclusive territory of those seeking to share knowledge or send communication.

The question I asked myself when I first used the internet years ago on how I would moniter a child - well, I would check their history, yes. I would make sure they were clearing their history. I would make sure they were protecting themselves. If my child was using a computer, I would want them to know how it worked. When they are around 12, maybe younger depending on ability, I will get them some computer parts. They can them teach themselves from a book how to build a computer. For an OS I will give them them some command line Linux distro and the manual for that.

If they manage to build and use the command line to get on the net and d/l a better operating system, I would say they have enough nouse about them to be let alone on the internet. I would not let them have a PC in their room until they were at least 16, for fear the turn into some sun starved pimple covered social reject.

The thing is, it is not just the 'internet' aspect of parenting, it is parenting as a whole. Good parents get all the questions and if you can answer it truthfully and without judging a question, a line of thought a child may have got into danger with on the internet can be answered truthfully and within the safety of a parent and child relationship.

Kids will always have access to inapropriate material, the internet just makes it faster, easier and less safe, but I think if you provide good support to a kid, they will ask your advice. The relationship both my brother and I had and have with out parents it open to the point of we can talk about anything. The same with the rest of my family. If you have people you speak with regularly, you can remain fairly grounded and aware. A

RemadE · November 2011

trx100 wrote: »

Just drill the idea into their head that there are some sick fuckers out there who aren't always who they appear to be. Don't trust anyone, and never ever meet anyone from the internet!

I met Tordek Battlehammer from &T and he is now my best mate lol. That said, I was worried he might rape me when we first met. But then I realised he had more to worry about.
Seriously though, BFF for life.

ThirdRockFromTheSun · November 2011

My parents didn't really mind what I watched, but they didn't want me watching porn and shit like that. They let me play 18 games as long as I didn't copy what I saw while I was out and about, which I didn't. I was a smart kid who didn't get roped into shit like that so easily. I can't remember how I found out what porn WAS, but I found porn with a friend of mine once, and we just giggled about it. I was always constantly checking my Dad wasn't about to walk into the room, though.

And so and so forth.

Unknown · November 2011

I remember plenty of times when I'd literally be walking along the street and find a porn magazine just laying at the side of the road, in a bush, or even in the bus shelter I used to stand under when I was waiting for the schoolbus. It was basically everywhere, really. Whenever I went to my friend's house, we'd go play on the PS2 in his big brother's room. He had a wide selection of 18-rated games such as GTA 3, State of Emergency and a bunch of others I don't even remember. We played a lot of Max Payne as well, which was also rated older than we were at the time. I fuckin' loved it, and I don't think it's had any effect on me at all. I know I'm a weirdo but I can't say it was due to playing games

Parental controls & censorship

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